The club has been going now for a fair few years and in those years, various members of the club have won trophies playing at WPS, GW and independent club tournaments for various game systems. This includes 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Most Sporting and even Best Painted - TWGC club members have won all of these trophies.

However the most important trophy to any Tanelorn player is the Tanelorn Club Wooden Spoon. Steeped in tradition from when the club first started, this trophy is coveted by any club player. The rules are simple:-

1. Three or more club players attend an event.

2. To qualify as being a club player for the Club Wooden Spoon, then the club members must be paid up club members for the current year OR club players that have attended the club in the current year AMD were paid up club members in the previous year to the current year. The current year being the same year of the event that is being attended by club players for trying to "win" the club wooden spoon. Confused you will be!

3. Then the lowest placing Tanelorn club player at the tournament wins the Tanelorn Club Wooden Spoon.

All the best players have won this trophy and for a laugh, we've decided to record the winners from 2009 onwards.

Tanelorn is a relatively new club which only started out in December 2000. For posterity and to provide an example to people who want to start their own wargames club up in their own area, I thought I'd put down how the club came about.

The Idea

It was 2000 and I was getting kind of cheesed off that I wasn't getting as much gaming in as I should be. Every Warhammer Player's Society event I went to had a big club presence from the various clubs up and down the country. I'd talked to various friends in the hobby and it seemed to me that the way forward was to join a club. I searched through the pages of Wargames Illustrated, did searches on the internet, used GW's gaming club database, divination, entrail readings - well okay the last two arent true! I had a darn good look around and got in contact with clubs even. The bottom line was that the clubs that were there already didnt play the games I wanted to be involved in. They played the conventional wargaming games like DBM, WRG and all those other serious games. I wanted to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle - purely selfish I know, but what the hell. It was inevitable that the only real way forward was to form my own club ....

Going About It

It was about November time by now and I abused my position as the WPS Membership Secretary and had a hunt through the database to see if there was anyone in the local area who may want to come along to a local club in the East London area. There were a few names there, but how to contact them? Easy a notice on the WPS Forums board! So was born the start of the Tanelorn Publicity Campaign. Thankfully there were like minded people out there who were interested in coming to a club in this geographical location. It was about this time as well that I started to hunt for a venue for the club. This involved looking through the Thompson Local, Yellow Pages and generally keeping an eye out for halls in the area. Luckily one of my sons was going to karate and Beavers at a lovely church hall not far from me. I got the contact details and costings as well as finding out when the hall was available. I hasten to add that I did have knock backs from other venues and people as these sorts of places are heavily booked up and used by people playing badminton, doing aerobics, karate, origami, bungie jumping - you get the idea.

Advertising

I decided to abuse my position again and get in contact with Che Webster (aka GW's Clubguy) and try to promote the club via GW stores. Che was more than helpful and when I put the idea of following the club in the process of it being set up over the first few months detailing them in an article (ripping off the idea of "A Tale of 4 Gamers") but now entitled "A Tale of How Billy No Mates Got Some Mates" he jumped at the chance. I put finger to keyboard and started there and then. I also designed an A4 flier that I wanted to put into local gaming shops or local GW stores. This provided basic contact information and the location of the first meeting in December. Oh and we needed a club name. Now let me think ..... easy, I'll name it after the old gaming website I used to run in the 90's - Tanelorn based on the Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books.

Word 'N Mouth

In the meantime, people started contacting me via the Forums, notably one John Kersey aka Commissar, Mike "Zepec" Wilkinson and Shane "canons can move too" Bradshaw. John was a HUGE help putting leaflets around GW stores up and down the country by the sounds of things as well as local gaming shops. I had also met some guys earlier in the year through my sons swimming lessons who I contacted about the new club forming and the prospective first date namely Richard "Stunty Blues Brother" Bamford and "Whispering" Nick Roberts. Martin "mother's kettle" Turner I'd met before at various WPS events and we'd talked about getting a club together at one of these events. Martin helped out with the distribution of flyers to the various GW stores that he knew. Getting Dave "cool dude" Simpson onboard (yes from the WarMag Warmaster Campaign Rules fame) happened by pure accident via the GW Gaming Club Network mailing list that I belong to. I believe that John Kersey had strong ties with the Brent Cross store which is where Dave Simpson had played his Warmaster campaign as featured in WarMag (did I mention that already?) and hence got him on board too. All in all we had about 9 people geared up to attend at the very first club meeting.

And the first Tanelorn Club Day happened and it was good ......

Its always strange meeting people for the first time. The slight trepidation and fear of whether its going to be ok, will people get on. The cool thing was that I knew a fair few of those people early on through various walks of life and of course my involvement with the UK tournament scene via the WPS.

From Then to Now

The club initially met every two weeks on a Monday evening. After a year we decided to try to move it to a weekly slot and found ourselves meeting on Sunday evenings at the church hall that I had found and mentioned earlier.

People come and go. Interest in games come and go too. Out of those original 9 people there are at least two still at the club (Nick Roberts and obviously myself) and I am in contact with Martin Turner of and on. The club went from a huge 40k bent to a Warhammer Fantasy bent. We had a period of interest in Warmaster and Warhammer Ancients too. Occasionally we would run leagues or campaigns in other game systems such as Blood Bowl, Necromunda or Mordheim. Flames of War peaked interest too.

15 years on and we see games such as Privateer Press' Hordes and Warmachine, Wyrd Miniatures Malifaux, GW's 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battle appear. Other games make appearances too - Epic Armageddon, SAGA, War and Conquest, Uncharted Seas and new Kickstarter games such as Relic Knights. The most important thing is that its not the games that makes the club, its the people and thats something we have - good people.

Come down and take a look and have a chat. The club location map is shown on the right of the screen.

CLUB MEETING DATES

The club meets from 2pm to 6pm every Sunday. Usually on the last Sunday of every month we have a slightly extended day where we meet from midday to 6pm. Check out the Club Calendar here which includes dates for some of the popular external gaming events and tournaments as well as the club meeting dates.

HOW TO GET TO THE VENUE

The closest London Underground Station are Stratford (Central Line), Hackney Wick (overground) and Pudding Mill Lane (DLR). The venue is a good 10 minutes walk from each of these stations.

FACILITIES AT THE VENUE

The club has a huge amount of great terrain, boards to game on and printed gaming mats too. This collection has been built up over the years. We make an effort to look after the terrain at the club and reinvest in new terrain every year. The terrain can cater from any sort of gaming from naval to sci-fi, to victorian steam punk to world war 2.

In addition there is a licensed bar at the venue which serves alcohol, soft drinks and beverages as well as food all at very reasonable prices.

The venue, Magic Madhouse is also a shoop which stocks boardgames, CCG related material, paints, hobby materials and miniatures. Magic Madhouse are very competitive with their prices for Club Members and look to price match at the very least but also beat other more competitive gaming retailers.

COST TO JOIN THE CLUB

At present, as long as you are a paid up club member, you get to use the club terrain and play for free at the venue. This is not only on club days but any day that you want to play at the venue. Non members have to pay the normal £2 table fees to Magic Madhouse themselves.

It costs £20 per year to join the club (pro rata) for players aged 18 and over. If you join mid year for example, we don't expect you to pay the full annual membership. It is paid pro rata so essentially £5 per quarter, so a mid year joiner would pay £10 for the year.

It costs £10 per year to join the club (pro rata) for players under the age of 18 . If you join mid year for example, we don't expect you to pay the full annual membership. It is paid pro rata so essentially £2.50 per quarter, so a mid year joiner would pay £5 for the year.

The club does try to subsidise events/tournaments for club members. We do run and organise our own events and any entry fee to these will normally be subsidised for club members.

The club committee are always looking at other membership benefits that can be introduced and made available to club members. This varies from movement widgets to club shirts and patches.

CLUB RULES

The club operates under a set of rules. The current version of the club rules can be downloaded from here.

PARKING AT THE VENUE

There is limited parking on Dace Road and surrounding streets on a Sunday. Parking is RESTRICTED on a Monday-Saturday so DON'T PARK there on those days! According to the current parking restriction notices as of the 16th July, there are single yellow lines on this and surrounding streets.